“AMERICAN Horror Story: Coven” is giving TV viewers goose bumps with its horrifying tales of infamous slave-torturer Madame Delphine Lalaurie and voodoo queen Marie Laveau in 19th century New Orleans.
But an ENQUIRER investigation reveals the truth about Delphine – played by Oscar-winning “Misery” star Kathy Bates – is even worse!
Delphine, a respected socialite, owned 54 slaves over the years. But she brutalized them in a secret torture chamber that was discovered in 1834 when a fire swept through her elegant mansion at 1140 Royal Street.
Her cook, who was chained to the stove, started the blaze in an attempt at either escape or suicide.
When fire marshals arrived, Delphine refused to open the servants’ quarters. Bystanders broke in and were horrified to find seven slaves in terrible condition – starved, caged, chained and wearing grotesque spiked collars.
One man had a hole in his head with a stick thrust into it. Slaves were said to have been strapped down to macabre operating tables, disemboweled and tortured, with mouths sewn shut to quiet their screams.
Enraged at what they found, the mob attacked the mansion, and Delphine fled in a carriage, eventually making her way to Paris.
“She was a psychopath, definitely a serial killer, and may have been doing this all of her life,” Carolyn Morrow Long, author of “Madame Lalaurie: Mistress of the Haunted House,” told The ENQUIRER.
“When people wanted to help rescue her servants as the fire spread, Delphine said, ‘Never mind the servants – save my valuables!’”
Rumors of Delphine’s abuse had circulated for years, and she’d once been charged with chasing a slave girl off the roof of her home with a whip. But local laws that barred slaves from testifying against free people meant that Delphine was never held accountable for the atrocities, explained Long.
According to the FX series, Delphine was kept alive in her grave by Marie Laveau. But in reality, she died in Paris in 1849. Her body was later exhumed and returned to New Orleans for burial.
Actor Nicolas Cage bought her home, but lost it to foreclosure in 2009. Today the three-story mansion is a fixture on New Orleans ghost tours.